


Best Foot Foreward

by DamnthatGeko



Category: Campaign Podcast, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ballroom Parties, Humor, M/M, Planet Naboo (Star Wars), The ship is really light and just a side thing, i love these boys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DamnthatGeko/pseuds/DamnthatGeko
Summary: The Bluebird gang is invited to a ball on Naboo. What could go wrong? The answer might surprise you.





	Best Foot Foreward

**Author's Note:**

> The answer is a lot. It’s not that surprising. A lot of this fic is inspired by the Dear Bluebird letter about who would go undercover with who as their romantic partner, then it just kind of snowballed.

Naboo, Theed - present

 

“I am in charge. I am. I _am_ ”

“No one said you weren't Blue. We are literally lying to the people at the door to get in and that's it. Pretty sure this doesn’t count as an infiltration mission,” Zero said, straightening his space tie and tucking it into his formal, black and white clothes with the hand not busy driving the land speeder. The dress clothes paired with his ubiquitous helm could be called “ahead of its time,” as two musical beings in the far far future would monopolize a similar look.

“Good! Exactly! I don’t know why you guys don’t kriffing trust me, this is literally my job. I make the Empire look good. I was _literally_ hired to make this dress look good.” Blue looked down at himself with a critical eye.

“I think it's supposed to be robes?”

It did look like a dress on Blue though. Naboo fashion was both aggressively ostentatious and violently sophisticated. So sophisticated in fact, that the difference between robe and dress was basically indecipherable to all but those versed in fashion and design. That is to say, all of Naboo and no one else, as far as the Naboo people were concerned.

Whether robe or dress, Blue was wearing no less than three different sheets of stiff material that draped and cascaded down from his pointed shoulders to the floor. Blue had insisted that his outfit be in the same or similar colors of his minister attire. He even had a blue pattern on his sleeves that looked suspiciously like his rank insignia.

“It doesn't matter. What matters is the Empire’s image.” Blue said, readjusting his maroon gloves. “I'm going to be talking to as many representatives as possible. Synox, since you're the face of the military I need you dancing. Show that you are physically capable and all that.”

“Yes sir,” Synox said from the back of the land speeder. He was wearing crisp military dress, sharp and official.

The Theed Royal Palace was a series of interconnected cylindrical buildings that towered over the rest of the city. The roofs were a cool green oxidized material capping the tall pillars of yellow stone that comprised the palace’s facade. At this time of day, just passed sunset, lights sparked from every window and floated above the many paths winding ever inward towards the center of the palace.

Zero parked the land speeder in the designated spot for the party goers. They disembarked and began the long trek across the sparkling palace plaza.

“Of course they made us park twenty kilometers away from the entrance. God, this is like Corellia again,” Blue pouted.

Zero glanced over at Blue who had his arms crossed aggressively over his ridiculously fine robe/dress. “It's not even half… are you wearing make up?”

Blue rolled his eyes. “Of course I'm wearing makeup. Do you think I'd be caught dead in front of a camera without looking picture perfect?”

“>:/” Appeared on Zero’s face plate as he thought about this new piece of information. “Holy shit,” he whispered as he stared at Blue’s omnipresent camera drone bobbing over his head. “It’s always recording…”

Blue just smirked.

 

When they reached the doors into the main ball room, they entered a short queue of guests waiting to be let through. Zero let Synox go ahead of him and turned to Blue in line.

“Put your hand on my arm.”

Blue looked at him, startled, it was clear that he had been using the databand integrated into one of the gaudy jewels clipped to his ear. “What?” The blue glimmer of light flickered away from one of his eyes as he closed down the holonet.

“Put your hand on my arm, quickly, we’re getting to the end of the line,” Zero reiterated.

“What? No, I’m not going to do that, this wasn’t in my plan,” Blue said, face wrinkling into an expression of derision.

Zero, suddenly became excruciatingly aware of the fancily dressed people in line behind them and the stuffy short woman taking names and tickets at the entrance to the ballroom. He leaned down a bit so he could talk quieter. “Just do it, we have to seem like we’re together and it’s not going to look like we even talk to each other if you are standing a meter away.”

Blue made a face, obviously debating whether to protest but came to the conclusion that listening to Zero was probably the best course of action. He quickly threaded his arm through Zero’s. “For the record I’d like to say that this would be so much easier if I could have gone in with Synox.”

Under his helmet, Zero rolled his eyes. “Sure, whatever you say Blue.”

 

 

 

 

The Bluebird, main lounge - several days ago

 

“So,” Blue said, as they all gathered in the main sitting area in the Bluebird, accompanied by the constant burble of brewing caf. “We’re going to a party.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that,” Aava said from where she was lazily sprawled on a couch. “It’s on Naboo or something isn’t it? Something to do with Empire Day and bad press?”

“Yes and no actually. It’s ultimately about the Empire’s image.”

A pixelated blue emoji lit up Zero’s screen from behind Blue and quickly rolled it’s eyes before disappearing into the black of his helmet once more. Zero was sitting on the couch facing Aava’s, feet up on the caf table where Blue would periodically shove them off only for him to put them back up again. Synox, ever the good soldier, was standing at parade rest.

“As I’m sure you all know, Naboo is a valuable asset to the empire. Not only is it a source of high quality plasma, but it’s also the home planet of our illustrious emperor,” Blue continued, activating his glasses and displaying a holo readout of the planet, its resources, and local news. “Recently, the production of plasma has dropped and-”

“Oh no!” Zero cried, “this isn’t Metalorn again is it?!”

“Oh it’s definitely not Metalorn,” Aava reassured with a lazy wave of her hand. “You’ve never been to Naboo? Nice place, lots of sandy beaches though.”

“I personally never visited Naboo during the war, or after.” Synoz stepped in before Zero could interject. “But CT-7567 visited there quite a bit. He said it was quite nice.”

“Right.” Blue steered the conversation back on track. “So the production has dropped which is a problem because Naboo was marketed even before the rise of the Empire, as a limitless resource. So having it run dry reflects poorly on the planet. The propaganda department is worried that it may be degrading for this bad press to continue with it being the emperor’s home planet and all.”

“So you have to go to a party,” Aava stated.

“So we have to go to a party, a ball, actually.”

“Well, good luck with this one.” Aava stood up from the couch and began walking towards the airlock to her personal headhunter, her voice getting fainter as she continued. “I have a different mission and I can’t be seen on camera anyway. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone and try not to kill anyone important on Naboo you’re not supposed too. Bye.”

The rest of them stared after her. Synox was the first to break the silence. “That was… sudden.”

“You think she has a problem with Naboo?” Zero lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Does she not like sand or something?”

Blue stood up and kicked the leg of the caf table. The leg of the caf table that was nailed to the ship’s floor for exactly this reason. The first time it had happened it had resulted in the damaging of a certain caff producing machine that Blue held very dear, needless to say it was the worst week any of the Bluebird crew had experienced.

“She completely messed up my plans is what she did!” He said, teeth gritted. “I knew exactly how to get everyone into this kriffing ball and now, kriffing now! ...I need some caf, I need a lot of caf.”

           

 

“My plan,” Blue said after a fresh cup of caf and some deep breaths. “Was going to circumvent the stupid Significant Other Rule.”

Zero shuffled on the couch to a more comfortable spot on the crisp upholstery. “Wait, what’s a significant other rule and why do you say it like its capitalized?”

Blue let out a long suffering sigh and placed the empty caf mug back on the table. “It’s a rule on Naboo apparently, a stupid rule if you ask me, but it basically means that the only plus ones guests you are allowed to bring have to be your significant other or the equivalent. I have an invitation because, well to be frank, because I _am_ the imperial propaganda department.” He puffed his chest up in a rather poor attempt at looking important. “Anyway, Aava could have done her mind… Force thing and posed with Zero as her SO, and of course Synox would pose as mine so everyone could have gotten in.”

“Now hang on a second sir.”

“Of course? Of course Synox? What the kriff man?”

“I have an inv-”

“Why would you pick Synox to be your SO?”

“Well, I feel like because of his military training, Synox would be most submissive and I’m the leader, so of course I would choose him for my SO,” Blue stated with supreme confidence.

“No, that’s… that’s completely wrong sir.” Synox said over Zero’s incomprehensible spluttering and static. “First of all my training doesn’t make me submissive, sir. It makes me a good soldier and-”

“But it makes me in charge! In this relationship I’m in charge!” Blue argued back.

Synox’s eyebrows furrowed. “Secondly if this was a true infiltration mission then I would actually be in charge and I wouldn’t bring you into the field with me in the first place.”

“What?!” Blue squawked, as he got to his feet. This, of course would have been much more intimidating if Blue hadn't had the physiology of a stick bug. “Of course I'd be in the field! I'd be posing as your SO! And I would definitely be in charge. I'm always in charge.”

Zero stood as well, jabbing his finger into the air at Blue. “What do you mean _of course he would be your SO_?”

“Well he's clearly the superior choice Zero. And because I'm an imperial official I deserve the superior choice.”

“So we're not going to get to choose who we go undercover with?”

Blue stamped his foot petulantly. “We're not technically going undercover, we're all going to a kriffing ball to make Naboo look good, and who cares about choosing who your SO is? I chose the best combinations. Who the hell would have you preferred?”

“No. I'm not saying now…”

Blue opened his mouth to issue a sharp reproach but was cut off by Synox soldiering between the two of them. “Now sir, this isn't necessary. I actually have my own invitation.”

“You what?”

“Yes, well, sirs, ever since Synox and Friends, I've been getting invitations to all the formal events,” Synox said stiffly.

“How did you get the invitation over the holonet without me knowing? I know everything.” Blue looked petulant.

“It was delivered as flimsi,” Synox said as he stepped away from the, now refocused, bounty hunter and minister.

“Wait, we get mail delivered to the ship?” Zero asked as he flopped onto the couch again.

Blue narrowed his eyes at Synox. “Why didn't you tell us earlier?”

“Does this mean I can get Hunter’s Weekly?”

“Frankly sir, I tried to but I was interrupted,” Synox said, once again resuming his customary place outside the circle of couches and chairs.

“I _will_ be getting Hunter's Weekly, there's a section that is written by Sneak and Tubaik, I don't care what you say, Blue.”

Synox crossed his arms and leveled a steady stare at Blue and Zero. The former of which was still standing in front of his chair with a face almost as red as his hair and the ladder passive aggressively shuffling his feet across the caf table towards Blue’s half empty mug. “I can't bring anyone else in anyway because if anyone asks any questions, they'll find out that I have a very strong public stance against relationships with working partners. So either you're going to have to go in with Zero or leave him sir.”

Zero knocked the caf mug onto the floor with a quiet, anticlimactic thump on the soft carpet.

 

 

  

 

Naboo, Theed - present

 

Despite the short line, it seemed to take forever before Synox was stepping up to the jolly woman in salmon pink and rosey gold who was the gatekeeper to the festive clamour beyond. They spoke quietly and Synox handed over his flimsi invitation while she chatted animatedly at him.

All of a sudden, it was their turn. Blue stepped up to the diminutive women.

“Good evening, Lord Adnau Wrengan, Baron of Mandalore and Minister of Propaganda.” He handed her his own invitation. Zero nudged him. “And my ...date, Zero,” he finished, lamely.

Her eyes lit up like the twin stars of Tatooine. “Oh simply lovely to meet you Lord Wrengan! We were desperately hoping you would attend.”

She turned and beckoned a young man toward them from halfway across the ballroom. “Terry, come here Terry! Lord Adnau Wrengan is here with his date!” she shouted, loudly enough for the entire ballroom to hear.

“Awe kriff.” Zero leaned in to Blue. “Bet you wish you had a mask now Mr. My-Face-is-too-Pretty-to-Hide.”

Blue made a face and was about to retort but the women turned back to them now with the young man beside her. He was decidedly short and rather handsome in a holo-drama sort of way.

“This is Terry, Terry Tavolo. He's going to be a senator, if his father has anything about it.” She tittered into her hand.

“Nice to meet you Terry,” Blue said, his voice was pleasant with just a touch of sanctimonious ego; his politician voice.

Terry nodded and they shook hands, exchanging a series of pleasantries and compliments. Zero wasn't sure if they were being serious or facetious at this point, and he was perfectly happy being ignored before… “I'm so sorry Lord Wrengan!” the woman said. “I've so rudely ignored your date, what do you do sir?”

“Oh you know,” Zero said. “A little of this, a little of that.” Yeah, that sounded cool.

She laughed like he had made the funniest joke this side of the galaxy, it even made Terry shifted uncomfortably. “You are too much, wherever did you meet him Lord Wrengan? Was it a whirlwind affair?”

He looked down at Blue, and commed: = l swear to God, who is dead by the way, if you tell that story, I’ll- =

“Mandalore, we met on Mandalore and yes, it was.” He smiled with too many teeth. “Well, thank you for greeting us, but we'd better join the others. We'll see you around.”

Once they were out of earshot of the duo Zero whispered, “Mandalore huh? Did _I_ swoop in and rescue you from that bounty hunter? Was that how we met?”

Blue ignored him. “That. Was the least informative and least productive conversation I've ever had.” He frowned. “The boy isn't even that important, The Imperial Senate isn't long for this government anyhow.”

“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about and I don't care. Oh, they have steak strips.”

Blue disentangled himself from Zero's arm, which he'd forgotten was still wrapped around Blues elbow. “I think I see Moff Tarkin, don't get into trouble.”

And he didn't. At least for most of the evening. That was, until the governor of Chandrila dropped dead.

 


End file.
